A surge of electrical activity in the brain could be responsible for the vivid experiences described by near-death survivors, scientists report.

A study carried out on dying rats found high levels of brainwaves at the point of the animals' demise.

US researchers said that in humans this could give rise to a heightened state of consciousness.

The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The lead author of the study, Dr Jimo Borjigin, of the University of Michigan, said: "A lot of people thought that the brain after clinical death was inactive or hypoactive, with less activity than the waking state, and we show that is definitely not the case.

"If anything, it is much more active during the dying process than even the waking state."

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University of Birmingham
From bright white lights to out-of-body sensations and feelings of life flashing before their eyes, the experiences reported by people who have come close to death but survived are common the world over.

However, studying this in humans is a challenge, and these visions are little understood.

To find out more, scientists at the University of Michigan monitored nine rats as they were dying.

In the 30-second period after the animal's hearts stopped beating, they measured a sharp increase in high-frequency brainwaves called gamma oscillations.

These pulses are one of the neuronal features that are thought to underpin consciousness in humans, especially when they help to "link" information from different parts of the brain.

In the rats, these electrical pulses were found at even higher levels just after the cardiac arrest than when animals were awake and well.

Dr Borjigin said it was feasible that the same thing would happen in the human brain, and that an elevated level of brain activity and consciousness could give rise to near-death visions.

Neurons
Neurons in the brain may go into overdrive around the point of death

"This can give us a framework to begin to explain these. The fact they see light perhaps indicates the visual cortex in the brain is highly activated - and we have evidence to suggest this might be the case, because we have seen increased gamma in area of the brain that is right on top of the visual cortex," she said.

"We have seen increased coupling between the lower-frequency waves and the gamma that has been shown to be a feature of visual awareness and visual sensation."

However, she said that to confirm the findings a study would have to be carried out on humans who have experienced clinical death and have been revived.

Commenting on the research, Dr Jason Braithwaite, of the University of Birmingham, said the phenomenon appeared to be the brain's "last hurrah".

"This is a very neat demonstration of an idea that's been around for a long time: that under certain unfamiliar and confusing circumstances - like near-death - the brain becomes overstimulated and hyperexcited," he said.

Striking
"Like 'fire raging through the brain', activity can surge through brain areas involved in conscious experience, furnishing all resultant perceptions with realer-than-real feelings and emotions."

But he added: "One limitation is that we do not know when, in time, the near-death experience really occurs. Perhaps it was before patients had anaesthesia, or at some safe point during an operation long before cardiac arrest.

"However, for those instances where experiences may occur around the time of cardiac arrest - or beyond it - these new findings provide further meat to the bones of the idea that the brain drives these fascinating and striking experiences"

Dr Chris Chambers, of Cardiff University, said: "This is an interesting and well-conducted piece of research. We know precious little about brain activity during death, let alone conscious brain activity. These findings open the door to further studies in humans.

"[But] we should be extremely cautious before drawing any conclusions about human near-death experiences: it is one thing to measure brain activity in rats during cardiac arrest, and quite another to relate that to human experience."

Well science is advancing and has to raise hypotheses. This is ok.
But if they conclude that the heightened brain activity in rats hints to NDE's in human, I wonder why they don't conclude straight away that rats have NDE's too.
That would be the real hit.

If a computer is running on low voltage, it should function worse, not better, yet many NDErs have vivid memories and well-ordered memories. The 'dying brain hypothesis' just doesn't fit the available evidence of the Near Death Experience or the Fear Death Experience (like when a truck ALMOST hits you, and you go to another dimension temporarily).

Another example
A car running out of gas beating all other cars in a race. That is the kind of a crazy explanation people give to NDEs: the anoxic or ischemic brain... -a brain dying but working much better than healthy brains. The Eben Alexander NDE talks about the orderly memory formation issue.

Thanks for the reply. I'm from VietNam , so I don't good English . I believe causality of Buddha . Please give me the exact answer. The soul exists or not exist? NDES are real or hallucinations by electrical surge in dying brain? If souls exist , We'll have a better world .
electrical surge in dying brain in : http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-23672150

Hi mrtruong,
There is no scientific proof that a soul is existing,
and there is no scientific proof that a soul is not existing.
So from the scientific point of view until today there's no possibility to know for sure. As a big part of science is only searching in materiality, or looks for consciousness in the material brain, they only can find what materiality is giving them.
But nowadays physics is delving deeply in the quantum field and comes up with some astonishing results, that could maybe bring a breakthrough in how science is looking at the world and at consciousness.

On the other side, we have people experiencing things. If they have common everyday experiences like going shopping, driving a car, looking TV etc. nobody is doubting them if they say I did this or I experienced that. But as soon as metaphysical things, that are not so common, happen to someone then people start doubting, calling them crazy and other things. Now I ask myself, why would I believe somebody I know well , about common things and not believe him if he tells me he had a special experience? Only because this is unknown to me? Because I cannot conceive it?
And the NDE experiencers say it loud and clear, they KNOW what happened to them and they consider it as a very real reality.
mrtruong, how is the Buddhist system reflecting upon soul? Having been brought up in Christian surroundings I don't know much about Buddhism, and I would really like to hear more about it, from your point of view.

There is a person with cancer also told me, in times of extreme pain of body scratching disease,a person had been clinically dead. Then, he saw a bright light, then the light as to fly high, no longer feeling pain in human disease, looking down to see his body still lies in a hospital bed. That moment occurred just a few seconds. I had asked for the case in which the heart stops beating, electroencephalogram recorded no sign of any proven brain electrical activity but also the mental processes such as perception, consciousness, memory, continues to work to revive the patient can tell there is clearly a very early ending time experiences in the brain is considered to be dead ?

When I was gone I feel very certain that my brain had nothing to do with my thoughts. I was no longer a part of my body, it was just lying on the ground very far below my vantage point, then I was separated from the world as well.

I think this is interesting, however these things are very hard to prove.
Just because the surge increased, does not mean much...logic only because when anyone goes through a survival trauma, our energy increases. Ever hear of anyone that can lift up a car to pull someone out during an emergency? Things like that do happen.

However, I stumbled onto this site only because I had a "strange" experience and was researching it. It was this actual post that came up in my search. Here is what happened and it is difficult to explain (I wonder if anyone really reads these replies after some time?)

I was asleep, in a deep sleep when in my sleep I felt something come into my body and it had to align itself with the heart and vital organs. I was not scared (I had other paranormal experiences where my hair would raise up) Then in my minds eye I saw an image of a neurological cell flash before my minds eye, then afterwards I heard this mild electrical zapping sounds sort of like electrical wires. Then I woke up...or became aware.

Now: I had to think about what happened, I did not feel different in terms of something inside of my body, I actually felt peace. I theorize that it was me actually going back into my body although I do not remember the being out of my body. Or, I was healed by some miraculous energy and the image was telling me what was going on.

Where was my healing? Well, for about four months I have had these strange sensations in both of my arms, like a nerve thing that I could not pin point. At first it was only my left arm, while sleeping and I would have to stretch it out or rub it to relieve the tension. It did not hurt, just a strange feeling that is hard to explain. Sometimes at work this would happen and I had to stretch it. Slowly, my right arm was feeling the same thing. I decided that it had something to do with my nerves along my spine so I started to do yoga and stretching, eating better and taking various minerals and vitamins to see if I could figure it out and stop it.

Nothing was working really, some days it would happen and some days it would not. Well after the above event, I have not had any more sensations in either of my arms. none. ziltch, all gone. (It has been two weeks!)

I am glad to have found this forum and site because I have had several experiences all of my life and sort of felt like a weirdo and alone in this. hardly tell anyone, like it is a joke between me and God.

About 15 years ago I had two very strange experiences also during my sleep. I felt that I woke up, I turned and saw my husband sleeping, I looked around my bedroom without opening my eyes I could see everything clearly, and then I realized I couldn't move my body at all, I knew I was awake and could see fine without any control of my body, I started feeling scared, without opening my eyes. I looked to my right and clearly saw what looked like 3 monks standing there by my side, with their monk capes, it was dark and I couldn't see their faces. I was trying to yell at my husband to help me move and wake up, I knew I was lying down and was completely conscious and aware, but couldn't move my body. Finally something happened and I was able to move and wake up my body, to find out that everything was the same as I had just seen it. Everything (except for the monks) looked the same as I had seen it while I couldn't move my body. It was a very strange experience. I did some research and found out that this is a common experience called sleep paralysis. Supposedly it's a defensive mechanism to protect you from acting out your dreams. However, I still wonder how I could have seen everything in my room without opening my eyes or being able to move, when I finally woke up my husband was in the same position, as I had seen him prior to waking up, I remember the sun was beginning to rise, same as what I had just seen. When I did the research, other people described the same thing, including seeing the monks or entities, with their capes, which I find strange. My other experience with this "sleep paralysis was similar except that when I woke up the monks were walking toward the door,, leaving the room, I still don't know what to think about these strange experiences, although they happened a long time ago, I still remember them clearly.

Hi Suzy,
There are a lot of people claiming having had out of body experiences while sleeping or even voluntary ones. And it is difficult to know what is really happening. One thing is sure those people that made the experiences know that they were real. In our culture those phenomena had been suppressed for the last centuries, being considered as nothing rational, and have been pushed in the 'nuts' corner, so we have no real basis on which to built something. It's only the last 20-30 years that things have started to change. I'm sure that both thoughts are right:
1) consciousness is not created by the brain (neurologically)
2) the brain is needed for us to be able to experience consciousness and to interact with this world.

suzy wrote: Or, I was healed by some miraculous energy and the image was telling me what was going on.

Our body knows when something is wrong, but we not always know what our body knows.
When I discovered my breast cancer, I got a message from my body. At the exact spot where the lump was, my breast started twitching, similar when a nerve is twitching around our eyes when you are a bit nervous, and you can't stop it. It did this several times until I noticed and tried to feel what was there. After that no twitching anymore. Well today I'm convinced that my body told me that something was wrong and where it was, fortunately.
So it could very well be that you felt the healing.
Have a nice day
Marguy

I have had two experiences with 'sleep paralysis'. Also, I've seen faceless monks too.

Also, in the pitch dark, about a year ago, I saw an area alongside me on the bed lit by a bright light. The pattern on the fabric was as clear as day. I was lying on my side and the light was coming from behind me and shining on the bedding in front of me. I was too afraid to turn around to see what the light source was. I could have done, I didn't have sleep paralysis on this occasion. I shut my eyes and asked it to go. Opened my eyes 30 seconds later and I was in the dark again.

Thanks for sharing your sleep paralysis experience. I find it very refreshing and helpful to hear someone else relate the same experience, it helps me validate my experience.
I dream very often, sometimes I have very interesting or vivid dreams, but with most of them, when I wake up I feel that they are just dreams. However, I remember this sleep paralysis experience as being different than a dream. I was so aware and conscious unlike the dream state, I knew what was happening around me. I find it very interesting that there are monks involved with your experience as well. Its hard for me to imagine that its all a coincidence. What do you think the monk thing is all about? They didn't look threatening to me, but they were very strange. I remember their heights. They were just standing there, as if they were watching me. I was very scared at the time, mostly from my inability to move my body.

There seems to be so much evidence coming from so many directions about the existence of more than what science if able to explain to us.

I find it very interesting that there are monks involved with your experience as well.

No, the monks were nothing to do with the two occasions of sleep paralysis. One monk, long, thin, grey, hooded - didn't see a face inside the hood just a blackness with the flapping grey of the hood around where the face should be - I saw when I was 15 as we were going along in long, slow, floating, leaps by a parade of shops in the village where I used to live. I don't know where we were going, or why. One of the shops had a large clock sticking out over the pavement. The time said 3.15.

I was not delighted to be with the monk. I felt awed. I was going with 'him' because he wanted me to. No idea why. Don't remember anything else.

The other monk I saw about 3 years ago in a medieval round tower. He was kindly. Didn't look ominous like the first one. He was dressed in brown. He was nice to me.

First, it is entirely possible the surge in electrical activity in the brain at the point of death is a common part of dying and may be what happens when all living creatures die. Doesn't mean one cannot also have an NDE along with the electrical surge as both may happen at the same time as a natural part of the dying process. These factors need not be mutually exclusive.

Second, the most important variables left out of this 'NDE = brain wave surge' formula are the similarities and complexities of experiences reported by thousands of people who claim to have NDE'S as opposed to random visions and memories that would caused by the final electrical gasps of a dying brain.

Just because the brain generates a surge in electrical waves when mice die does not mean that is the cause of all NDE's reported by humans. While each NDE is specific to the individual experiencer, there are too many similarities and complex details between NDE's than can be explained by mere electrical surges in brain waves. If all NDE'S were caused by electrical surges in brain waves, it might help explain the bright light seen or the feeling of going through a tunnel but it does not explain why people see similar beings, landscapes, their deceased relatives or the communications that occur. It can only explain what happens in the brain when it dies, not the complex yet similar experiences so many thousands of people have described.

I get so tired of this "One Theory Fits All" mentality scientists tend to use and the incredible leaps of logic they make without thinking it all through. They rush to release their findings and don't seem to care if they their methods are flawed.

I agree with everything you have said. I think that the recent report about mice experiencing an electrical surge in the brain at the point of death was seized upon by journalists with nothing better to write about. Scientists know well that you cannot extrapolate from such an electrical surge that NDEs are caused this way.

Plenty of journalists and scientists are atheists/materialists with an axe to grind.

therose wrote:First, it is entirely possible the surge in electrical activity in the brain at the point of death is a common part of dying and may be what happens when all living creatures die.

I have a similar thinking about this. It could be a kind of download to (somewhere??) of all the experiences registered in the brain. As I think that every living being has a kind of (conscience), not really a human conscience, but anyhow a mouse conscience for a mouse or so etc... We as humans often think that we are so very superior to others beings on this planet, that we just consider them as minor things. But if there were no very tiny beings in the soil and everywhere, no plant, no animal and no human being would be able to exist. We exist on their life, they support us.
wish you a nice day

I'm leaning to the idea that our brains act as neurological control units for our physical bodies in a physical realm - and as high-speed connections to the spiritual world. With firewalls that usually prevent us from crossing over willy-nilly. Except that, when we have an illness, accident or some neurological glitch, the firewall can fail and our earthly experience then mixes with the spiritual.

Anyway, I've read so many stories of individuals who had a serious illness or accident who then start to have paranormal experiences.

One example that I puzzled over - Edgar Cayce. As a young boy, he began having ghostly visitors that he perceived as real, and as a teenager had other paranormal experiences. I read more and found that, as a toddler, (1) he had a near-drowning experience, and (2) fell on a nail in a board that pierced through his skull and into his brain. OK, then...

My poor-man's hypothesis is that when the neurological firewall in our high-speed spiritual gateway is damaged (or hacked), there is a surge of spiritual experience (traffic).

I think the electrical surge in the brain is perfectly reasonable as the neurological safeties go off-line in a dying brain. I also suspect that a similar surge would occur when an OBE occurs.

Some might ask - how would this idea fit with those who have paranormal experiences but no accident or illness? Well, who is to say that an individual hasn't had an accident or illness at a very young age (even before birth)? I don't know. I don't have money or ego riding on this, just a theory.

A lot of the NDEs I've read about express a belief in existing before this mortal life. If this is the case, then there's obviously a sort of 'veil' (or as someone else put it, firewall) that prevents us from remembering our previous existence. This could be an actual barrier or just the nature of our mortal, brain/spirit connection.

So imagine going beyond this veil, and then coming back through the veil but taking memories with you. And these memories are now in your brain, able to be recalled and visualized.

I think it's safe to say, that the downloading of all this information into your mortal, physical brain, could create a spike in brain activity.

In other words, it's very possible that rather than the NDE being a result of increased brain activity, that the increased brain activity is a result of the NDE.

I think it's safe to say, that the downloading of all this information into your mortal, physical brain, could create a spike in brain activity.

In other words, it's very possible that rather than the NDE being a result of increased brain activity, that the increased brain activity is a result of the NDE.

Hi, EternalFalter, and welcome to the forums.

That's a great point you are making here. I am especially touched by your use of the word 'downloading'.

Only 24 hours ago I was reporting to a friend how I had just been woken up by a dream in which I had been shown that "downloading information from God only takes up a few Gb of our memory." And then I found I needed to spend the whole day yesterday reviewing an article about Mellen-Thomas Benedict's NDE, in 1982, one of the most profound NDE accounts I have ever read.

Scientist are yet to provide an explanation of how a person with terminal cancer can be dead for at least 90 minutes and then come back when his body is already entering the stiffness of rigor mortis with the memory of such a powerful experience and completely healed from cancer. I also learnt, as I was reviewing the article yesterday, that Mellen-Thomas Benedict passed on 31 March 2017, which means that he lived for 35 years after the experience.